


constant as a northern star

by LadyRaincloud



Series: Love Is Touching Souls [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, IT IS!!!, Jet is Sir Only Barely Appearing in This Fic, Juno loves Rita so much you guys, M/M, Nureyev got himself stuck with a Soul and terribleness ensued essentially, but it's CATHARSIS of a sort, canon typical levels but still tread carefully, embarrassingly tender, he's in awe of her everything, is this could it be, no beta we die like men, specifically broken bones and burn scars, specifically canon divergent after Man of the Future, the comfort is not that comforting and quite painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRaincloud/pseuds/LadyRaincloud
Summary: After everything he's had to push himself through over the last - too long, he's losing count - Juno Steel really, really needs a rest.There's just one more thing he has to do first. If he's been given a second chance to go back for Peter Nureyev, he's got to take it. Even if it means forcing himself through as long as it takes. Even if it means taking options he doesn't want to.He owes it to Nureyev, and, maybe, he owes it to himself.





	constant as a northern star

**Author's Note:**

> The fic title, like the prequel, is from 'A Case of You' by Joni Mitchell. I promise I'll let that song go one day. Just not until I've finished this series.
> 
> I anguished over each chapter of the prequel for weeks at a time, and then knocked this out in about six hours, mostly by accident. This is quite possibly very evident.
> 
> This takes place in a universe where my little canon divergence happened and then everything in Soul of the People up to the aftermath of the Newtown stuff happened exactly the same, just a bit later.
> 
> I planned this whole series all out back in November so certain events line up with certain bits of canon that then happened, but I SWEAR I planned stuff before.
> 
> Like the tags say, there's semi-graphic descriptions of broken bones, and somewhat more graphic descriptions of burns. I probably described them less graphically than the actual show does, but still, it's not pleasant to read.
> 
> Oh, and this is the first time I've ever written Rita, which I was sort of planning to avoid entirely because the idea of trying to write her voice terrifies me. I hope her dialogue doesn't read as incredibly fucking stupid as I felt writing it, and if it does, I'm really sorry.

After pushing himself through so much over the last few days, even Juno could acknowledge that he needed – even deserved – a rest. But after everything, before the dust had a chance to settle on Newtown, there was one more thing he had to do.

 

Juno was far from the only person running through the streets trying to find someone, the enforced calm they'd been living in abruptly replaced with panic after the hold of the Souls on their mind had been released. His broken shoulder and ribs felt like they would burn through his skin more with every jostle as he shoved his way through crowds of people desperately screaming the names of loved ones they needed to find, whose safety they needed to assure before they could consider the nightmare to really be over.

 

 

 

He didn't want to ask any more of Rita than he already had, after everything she'd already done, but it was the only real option left to him under the circumstances. There seemed to be more people in Newtown now than Juno had ever seen there back when it was Oldtown, and it would take him god knew how long to make his way through the whole town and all of them, even without the state of panic that everyone was in.

 

'Rita, I'm so, so sorry to ask you for anything else, and believe me, I wouldn't if there was another way. But there's one more thing I need to do before we can go home, and I don't know that I can do it without your help.'

 

The force of Rita's double take was almost enough to bounce her head off her shoulders, and she pursed her lips and squinted quizzically up at him, but mercifully didn't ask any follow up questions that went beyond the basics. Juno wasn't sure how he'd have even begun to answer if she had. 'Sure, Mista Steel. I've missed all my streams anyway, might as well stick around a bit longer, but I don't know about you Boss but I sure don't want to be around when the HCPD get 'round to –'

 

He felt a twinge of guilt for cutting her off, but he thought she would probably understand. After going through all of this together, Rita was probably about as tired as he was, even if she was less prone to expressing it in her demeanour. 'Me neither, Rita. But there's just someone I need you to find first. And then I'll get you home, okay?'

 

She blinked owlishly up at him. 'But Boss, do you really think this is the best time for it? There's ambulances comin' for everyone, I heard it on the HCPD comms broadcast, and I'm sure you can catch up with your friend later.'

 

Juno took in as deep a breath as his lungs could hold with his bruised ribs, and released a little of the tight hold he had on the exhaustion and terror and sincerity he'd been pushing down deep inside himself because he couldn't afford to let himself feel them. He forced himself to look Rita in the eye, and allowed some of it to show in his face and voice when he answered. It was still hard, showing that vulnerability to anyone. But she deserved to see that he wouldn't be asking this, or anything else, of her now if he didn't really, really need her help.

 

'I don't know if there'll be a later, if I don't do this now.' He paused for a moment, tried to calm down. Rita had been through a lot, and she had to be as tired and scared and strung out right now as he was. If she didn't have any more in her, then Juno couldn't blame her for that. He could find another way. He didn't know what exactly that would actually be, but the past few days had involved a whole lot of finding a way to do things when no options seemed available. Granted, he couldn't have done any of that without Rita, but – but he'd faced a lot of impossible situations by himself in the past, even if he was learning now that he didn't always have to, and he could manage one more.

 

'Rita, I'd understand if you need to just get away from here now –'

 

'I'm gonna stop you right there, Mista Steel. We're finishing this together, no matter how long that takes or what you need to do first, okay?'

 

He was unable to speak for a moment, any words choked off by the well of gratitude in his chest for her at that moment. There wasn't even any question in Rita's eyes anymore, just determination.

 

She poked him in the side, pretty hard considering the size of her finger, and peered up at him with one of the sternest looks he'd ever seen on her round face. 'And _don't_ think I didn't notice that you only said about getting _me_ home. We're _both_ goin' home after this, you hear? No ifs, no buts, Rita's gonna get whatever you need done, and then, Boss, you're gonna get some rest.'

 

Juno managed to muster a smile, if a weak one, to look down at her. He couldn't find the right words for his gratitude, and he definitely didn't want to risk starting to cry or anything equally mortifying and time-wasting, but he hoped she could see it in his face. 'I don't know how long this will take me, Rita. But I promise you, I'll get some rest as soon as I can, okay?'

 

Rita narrowed her eyes and grumbled under her breath a little, but graciously refrained from pressing the issue any further. 'Let's get this over with, then. Who do you want me to find?'

 

It felt like another betrayal to give her Nureyev's name, but Juno knew she would need it to be able to locate the last registered location of the Soul on him before it had been deactivated. Rita would probably be capable with less information than that, but he didn't know the date of Nureyev's arrival on Mars or what alias he had used – and besides, there wasn't time to waste by delaying in any kind of way. The extent of the damage the Soul had done to Mick's body – and, Juno guessed, to his own – was horrifying, and he didn't know what else it might have pushed Nureyev through since he'd left him in Ramses' office. He tried to avoid looking too closely at any of the imagined scenarios pulsing around his brain, of every awful thing that could have happened, but he couldn't stop the dread rising like bile in his throat.

 

'And once you've found him, Rita – I'm going to need you to delete every bit of information you can find on him on the systems, for anywhere in Hyperion. Anywhere on the planet, if you can. I mean, if that's something you can –'

 

Rita's snort answered that question for him before he needed to finish asking it.

 

'Alright. And if you can avoid it, just, please don't look at any more than you have to, okay? And – try to forget the name.' Juno knew she wouldn't – he couldn't comprehend Rita's brain, but he knew it could do just about anything but forget – but he had to say it.

 

She didn't even blink, or slow her pace alongside him. 'You got it, Boss.'

 

Rita slipped her hand, the one that wasn't tapping away at her comms, into his while they walked. For the first time, Juno didn't pull away, and let her grip onto his hand tightly while she steered him down streets she wasn't even looking up from her comms to navigate.

 

Juno trusted absolutely in Rita's ability to get them to the last location Nureyev's Soul was registered to, and – like always – she didn't disappoint. They found it in less time than he'd expected, even. But Nureyev wasn't anywhere to be seen on the deserted side street, far from the town hall – he really had been able to break free and make his way after Juno quickly – that Rita led them to. The Soul was there, gleaming dully where it lay dead in the gutter by the pavement, its brackets bloody where they'd been torn free of his flesh.

 

'I swear it was here, Mista Steel!' Rita's eyes were huge and imploring. 'I didn't get it wrong or get lost or anything!'

 

He looked down at her, squeezing her hand a little before releasing it. 'I know, Rita. He's just gone.'

 

Rita hugged her arms around herself, and shifted from one tiny foot to the other, looking up at him wide-eyed, unsure of where to go from there. That made two of them.

 

Juno leaned down to place his hands on her shoulders in what he hoped was a reassuring way. 'Rita, I need to stay here and find him. But you have to get home.'

 

'Nuh-uh, Boss, I ain't leaving you here!' She reached up to grab onto the torn sleeve of his coat, as if by clinging tightly enough, she could anchor him by her side.

 

As gently as he could, he pried her fingers loose. 'Rita, I promise you I'll go home as soon as I can. But I've got to do this first. And the HCPD will be here soon, and I really don't feel like wasting the next god knows how many hours answering their questions about what happened here.'

 

Rita opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed on before she could. 'And you're the only person in this whole town without any record of a THEIA Soul having been on them. If they find me, they'll be able to find out that I had one, and they can't prove that I would know more than anyone else here.' Juno was sure Khan would have his suspicions, if it did come to that, which he didn't intend to let it – but there was nothing in what he said that Rita could argue with, though she narrowed her eyes and huffed angrily, before alternating between berating and trying to cajole him for a little while.

 

'Rita. I can't let them find –' he didn't want to say the name any more times than he already had. '– this person, okay? And if the HCPD find me first, they won't want as much from me as they will from you, or us together. So _please_ , Rita, I need you to just go home. I've got my comms. Let me know when you get home safe, and I'll let you know when I'm leaving here.'

 

'But _Boss –_ '

 

'Rita, please –' Juno smiled weakly down at her. 'You're fired, okay?'

 

Her eyes were, horrifyingly, filling with tears, and she was worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, but for once, didn't say anything.

 

'This is what I need from you most right now. Please trust me on this.'

 

She hurled herself at him and wrapped her arms around his waist so tightly that his bruised and broken body was screaming in objection, but he hugged her back as well as he could with his good arm. He could feel her shoulders shaking, and her tears soaking into his coat, but when she spoke, her voice was steady, if muffled from where her face was pressed into his body. 'Okay. But Mista Steel, you get back as soon as you can, you hear?'

 

Juno gripped her shoulder tightly. 'I promised, didn't I?'

 

She released him and stepped back, sniffing a little still but staring up at him fiercely. 'That's right, you _promised_. So I better hear back from you soon, Mista Steel, okay?'

 

'I'll call the first second I can,' he told her, and he really did mean it. If he wasn't expecting it to be quite so soon as he might have been leading Rita to believe … well, he could explain that later.

 

 

 

It was harder, without Rita by his side. Juno felt very small in a very big town that, even after everything, he still expected that he'd blink and see returned to the same place he grew up.

 

He was a detective. He knew how to search for a trail. Even so, Nureyev, damn him, was somehow still good enough at covering his tracks that even after the amount of abuse his body had taken from the Soul and what looked to be a messy removal of it, there wasn't even so much as a smear of blood left to go on.

 

The sun was setting over Newtown and it was getting harder and harder to avoid the HCPD, and Juno was been beginning to suspect that Nureyev had somehow evaded them to get himself out undetected and disappear off-planet and out of Juno's life again. He was close to hopelessness when, finally, he found him.

 

Opposite the park where the apartment Juno had grown up in had once stood, in a side street so darkened and narrow it was barely visible between the buildings, Nureyev had clearly used his last shred of consciousness to melt into the shadows. Curled up on his side, pressed so closely against the building that his outline was barely visible against it, he looked smaller than Juno had ever seen him. For an awful moment, he seemed completely still, the rising and falling of his chest so minimal as to be indiscernible. It was only when he saw the ripples in the puddle of rain where Nureyev's face rested, spreading out from where his shallow breaths just barely stirred the surface of the water, that the fist that had clenched in Juno's chest when he saw him like this loosened a little.

 

Nureyev didn't stir at Juno's presence when he dropped to his knees beside him to touch shaking fingers to his chest, unwilling to believe fully that he was alive until he could feel a heartbeat. It was slow, and coming erratically, but it was there.

 

When Nureyev had first asked him, before Juno had even known his name or known him at all, how he expected to die, he'd described a scenario all too similar to this as what happened to everyone. Even at the time he'd said it, Juno had never thought of 'everyone' as something meant to include the man he was talking to.

 

Juno didn't know how long he knelt by Nureyev's side, hunched over him, hands fluttering uncertainly close to his prone body but afraid to touch. Only that by the time he could remember to breathe again, he realised that he needed to move fast to get them both out of here. One person, adept at hiding in the shadows, might be able to avoid the HCPD' s searching to account for everyone, but two were a whole lot more conspicuous.

 

The broken bones in his shoulder ground together so much when he managed to lift Nureyev into his arms, that it was only lack of breath from the exertion that kept Juno from screaming. His breath hissed out in tiny bursts between his clenched teeth while he limped along, trying to clutch Nureyev as close to him as possible for fear of dropping him and being unable to find the strength to lift him again.

 

He could only carry him as far as the park, eventually collapsing in the shadow of the Andromeda statue. Laying him as gently on the grass as he could, Juno manoeuvred Nureyev's head to rest in his lap while he fumbled in his pocket for the right comms. His fingers shook as he clumsily found the only number programmed into it.

 

This was his only option; even after Rita had wiped all the details from the system as clean as she could – so probably cleaner than anyone else in the whole galaxy would be capable of – he couldn't risk taking Nureyev to Hyperion General, or any hospital that might keep his records on file and lead to any chance of leaving a trail. But he clearly needed medical attention urgently; he probably had about the same number of broken bones as Juno, and the burns on the back of his neck had spread further, leaving a trail of blisters down the line of his back, and Juno wasn't about to take the chance of his heartbeat going from barely there to... well. The blood from them soaked through the thin lace of his shirt into Juno's trousers as he waited for the call to connect.

 

He didn't wait for a greeting once he got through, afraid to give himself a chance to back out. 'I'm in. For whatever you want me to do. I'll do it. I only have one condition. I'll explain when you get here.'

 

The voice on the other end was as calm as ever, and the weight of the words sunk into Juno's bones. 'I told you, Juno, I will only come back for you once.'

 

He squeezed his eye shut and sucked in a breath through his teeth. There wasn't time to negotiate. 'Yeah. Whatever. I get it. Just get here as soon as you can.' He relayed his coordinates before hanging up abruptly, not wanting to listen to any attempt to caution him about what he's about to do. This was the only solution that he could think of.

 

A thin stream of blood made its way down from the corner of Nureyev's eye to trickle over the angles of his face. Juno raised a tentative hand to wipe it away, resting his thumb at the source to try to stem the flow.

 

Long fingers wrapped around his wrist. He startled at the touch, and they loosened, Nureyev's hand moving to flutter away before Juno covered it with his other hand, keeping it in place.

 

Nureyev's eyes stayed closed, but his grip was steady, if weak. His lips moved only barely, and his voice came out a hoarse whisper. 'Juno....'

 

Juno laced his fingers through Nureyev's where they clung onto his wrist. His voice came out almost as cracked and tremulous as Nureyev's. 'Hey. I'm here. I've got you.'

 

Nureyev's other hand lifted slightly, and Juno caught it in his. It raised to touch Juno's cheek for a moment. He turned his face until his lips brushed slightly against Nureyev's palm, holding his hand to rest where it was. Nureyev's wrists bore deep, bloody gouges from where he'd clearly tugged on the handcuffs. Juno had no doubt he could have unlocked them easily, with no need for any physical struggling, but clearly the Soul had deemed that the less expedient option. He stroked his fingertips as gently as he could over the torn flesh, resting them on the point where he could feel Nureyev's pulse.

 

Nureyev's eyelids fluttered open for just a moment, just long enough for his eyes to focus on Juno's, before closing again. There was something close to wonderment in his voice. 'You're really here.'

 

Juno closed his own eye and let his head drop, lowering it to press his forehead against Nureyev's. 'Yeah,' he whispered against his skin. 'I'm here, Nureyev. I'm not going anywhere yet.'

 

The first drops of rain started to fall, striking against Juno's back to singe his coat while he tried to shield Nureyev from the burning precipitation as much as he could. Nureyev's eyes stayed closed, and he didn't say anything else or stir at all, but his grip on Juno's hands didn't falter. They stayed like that, in a moment of stillness that was the first they could get, and might be the last for who knew how long, Juno focused entirely on Nureyev's presence in the quiet and growing darkness, until the reverie was broken by the rumbling of an engine. Juno didn't raise his head from where it rested against Nureyev's as the hovercycle descended from the sky.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read this far, thank you! I've cried at every comment I've received in the past, and I will probably do so again if you comment.
> 
> I promised I would write them some catharsis, and I know this is not very. There's more coming, I promise. One day I'll write them having a reunion where they're both actually fully lucid and able to have a proper conversation. It just won't be until after several more instalments, because, terrible.


End file.
